


Shuffle Off This Mortal Coil

by jellybeanforest



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: AI Tony Stark, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cap-Ironman Bingo, Established Relationship, Grief, Hopeful Ending, Immortal Steve Rogers, Immortality means watching everyone you love die, Lights on Park Ave Prompt, M/M, Minor Bucky Barnes/Natasha Romanov, Mourning, What it means to be a clone, What it means to be human
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:53:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23399503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jellybeanforest/pseuds/jellybeanforest
Summary: Tony hadn’t been a cruel man, but he had been a practical one.Or: In his twilight years, concerned about how his slow-aging possibly-immortal husband will adjust to his death, Tony builds an AI version of himself that he updates nightly, intending for it to keep Steve company after he’s gone. When the inevitable comes to pass, Steve doesn’t know what to make of the AI or whether its presence lessens his grief or makes it significantly worse.He’s leaning towards the latter.For the Cap-IronMan Bingo 2020 Round 1 – Y4 photo square. Based on a prompt from Lights on Park Ave Round 7.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 97
Kudos: 240
Collections: Captain America/Iron Man Bingo, Lights on Park Ave





	1. Unraveling

**Author's Note:**

> Earlier canon made it seem like Steve is effectively immortal. I don’t know how Old Steve shows up at the end of Endgame, but this fic disregards the aging process when it comes to Steve (or it’s just way, way slower due to the serum) so he remains physically a young man even as Tony grows old, and he has to grapple with human Tony’s death and what it means to be left with an AI with all Tony’s memories and thought patterns. 
> 
> Anyways, this is for the Y4 square of my Stony Bingo, which is a panel from the comics showing a black-suited Iron Man carrying Captain America and is based on the following Lights on Park Ave Round 7 Prompt: 
> 
> “Persephone, still alive, exhaustingly alive, covered in flames.”  
> -Hellish, by Lola Ridge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony prepares for his impending death. It still manages to take Steve by surprise.

They had talked about it, of course, about what would happen if one of them (Tony) died in any number of life-threatening situations. What if Victor von Doom’s bots overwhelm Iron Man? What if an EMP took out the armor mid-flight sending him barreling towards Earth? What if he went to space _again,_ and the suit suddenly depressurized?

...What if Tony’s heart simply gave out?

Any number of catastrophes considered with countermeasures designed and implemented, the risks mitigated and fears laid to rest (though never erased).

But in all their hypothetical scenarios and what ifs, they had never accounted for what would happen if Tony simply _outlived_ Iron Man.

“Come to bed, sweetheart,” Steve implores him from the open doorway. He yawns, stretching out to crack his back and roll first one shoulder then the other. Finally, he shakes his muscular arms loose before peering sleepily over at his husband.

“Just five more minutes,” Tony says. The helmet he wears upon his wizened brow buzzes and hums. “I’m almost done.”

Forty-three years and he is just the same as always, Steve thinks fondly. “That’s what you said ten minutes ago.”

“Ah, I did, didn’t I? Must have become dottering in my old age,” Tony says brightly, though he makes no move to step away from his experiments. “But you know what they say, honey: No rest for the wicked.”

When the system beeps shortly after, Tony removes the helmet, fluffs out his thinning white hair that had flattened underneath, and ambles over towards Steve, a little stiff after sitting for so long. “Will you look at that? Right on time. Early in fact, thanks to F.R.I. You are her special favorite, you know.”

Steve looks past him and cants his head to the side to consider the helmet, a long-term project his husband had become increasingly engrossed in during recent months. It is a chrome design, fitted close to Tony’s head, wires springing out from the dome at even intervals and neatly swept back into the main bundle exiting the base, tethering him to a large server. “What are you working on?” he inquires.

Instead of a straight answer, Tony deflects, “Race you to bed? First one there gets head.” He sets off, managing three steps before Steve’s brain catches on to the offer.

* * *

“You let me win, didn’t you?” Tony grumbles softly, his breath hitching into a groan as he runs fingers through Steve’s dirty-blonde hair, unchanged from the day they met, not even a hint of silver sullying the lush locks.

Steve pulls off with a wet pop. “You know I can’t resist Tony Jr. here. I see no reason why we both can’t get what we want.” He gives him a stroke. “I’ll make you see stars. Promise.”

They had had to make adjustments to their sex life through the years, redefine what intimacy and sex meant for them as Tony aged and slowed and his dick became a little less reliable. Steve hadn’t minded – not too much, not enough for it to matter anyway – because while Tony’s body had changed, softened and sagged, he is still the same man Steve had fallen in love with all those decades ago. He is still so very beautiful.

Steve swallows him down, gently massaging his balls before stroking a slick finger over his hole, slipping it inside to the first knuckle, careful not to hurt him.

“Hngh… Jesus, Steve… Oh- oh God,” Tony pants, thrusting up into Steve’s mouth, trapped between his tongue and intruding finger. His toes twitch and curl, and the grip on Steve’s hair tightens as the man continues, moving his tongue, his mouth just how Tony prefers. Tony is just making sounds now, incapable of actual words as he squirms under Steve’s ministrations.

Steve's free hand slips down to take care of his own erection as Tony draws close then crests, leaving him a sputtering mess. He swallows then smiles, rolling up onto his knees to kiss his dazed husband.

After all, Steve always keeps his promises.

* * *

Steve flips, throwing his shield in mid-air to ricochet against the wall, taking out two training drones on the rebound just as Ironheart blasts the reinforcements with enough precision to avoid Hawkeye’s arrows. Those had been upgraded by Tony himself, designed to target the enemy and incapacitate them with small, controlled blasts.

It’s just the three of them today: Ironheart, the new Hawkeye, and Captain America. Bucky had taken the others to brush up on their hand-to-hand combat skills. He had stepped up their training regiment in the months since Nat’s sudden death. She had been young, barely 70 when the cerebral infarction took her from them. 

Bucky had taken her death hard. He stayed with Steve and Tony for weeks after, unable to step foot in their apartment nor sleep in the empty bed he and Nat had shared for nearly forty years. They had had no children aside from the younger generation of Avengers, so Bucky had refocused the grief of losing his wife into training them, running them ragged with his super-soldier stamina until Steve had to step in and punch it out with his oldest, best friend, their match ultimately ending in a sobbing, tight embrace.

 _Shhh… It’s okay, Bucky,_ he had murmured into the man’s shoulder as his body shook. _We’ll get through this, you and me._

Because ultimately, that’s who it will come down to in the end: Bucky and Steve. Alone but together.

* * *

“You may want to refine the aperture of the repulsors by increasing the range of dilation, especially at the lower end. That will allow for more precise targeting,” Tony tells Riri later as he looks over her Ironheart armor.

“Way ahead of you, old man,” she replies, having already extracted the mechanism in question from her right gauntlet. She presently jimmies the mechanical lens loose. “I don’t know how you didn’t blast off someone’s limb back in the day, considering the limitations of the original Iron Man models.”

He had, not that Riri knew the details surrounding the incident in Siberia, but then again, it had also been on purpose at the time. Tony hated to dwell on it, the circumstances that almost tore him and Steve apart. “It was a different time,” he states, his affect carefully neutral.

She doesn’t cotton on to the difference. “Yeah. A reckless one. You’re lucky Iron Man was so underpowered back then,” she teases.

“Excuse you,” Tony says in mock-offense. “Iron Man was amazing, way ahead of its time. And the style… no one could compete. I was hot. Just ask Steve.”

Riri rolls her eyes. “Not criticizing. Iron Man crawled so the rest of us could fly. Credit where credit’s due, but repulsor technology was in its infancy back then… you know, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.”

“Young people these days. No respect,” Tony scoffs, holding up the replacement rim and squinting at the smoothed edges, finding it acceptable before handing the part to the younger mechanic. “Why back in my day–”

“You walked three miles to school in sleet and snow,” a smile tugs at the corner of her mouth, betraying amusement. “Uphill. Both ways. Or that’s what my grandfather always says.” She drops the part in place, testing the seamless fit and coming away satisfied.

“Damn straight. And we were glad for it, too,” Tony declares, raising a brow. “You know how terrifying it was to be the first person to realize there was an icing problem with the suit _mid-flight_?” He taps his fingers in a roll across the surface of the workspace. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

Riri only hums as she concentrates on the gauntlet, holding her hand out for a soldering gun, which Tony supplies without a word, understanding the implicit request.

Steve chooses that moment to interrupt, entering the lab with a glass of water and his husband’s pill organizer. “Tony, sweetheart,” he says. “It’s time for your pills.”

Tony huffs out a small sigh, but he takes them without comment, without complaint, draining the entire glass of water for good measure before ultimately returning to work. The last time he had tried to talk to Steve about to possibility of discontinuing some of his long-term medications, making the off-hand comment that high cholesterol is unlikely to be the thing that will kill him these days considering his age, Steve had bit his lip and looked so heartbroken Tony had to walk back that particular argument. They both knew he wasn’t going to live another ten years, but there is no point rubbing it in.

“You giving Tony a run for his money?” Steve asks Riri. “Don’t underestimate him. He’s spry for an elderly fella.”

Tony doesn’t even look up from where his young protégé is assembling the unit. She is administering the finishing touches with an even steadiness of which Tony is no longer capable, his own hands having become a touch shaky in his twilight years. “You’re the one robbing the cradle.”

Riri concurs, “Speaking of dinosaurs…”

* * *

That night, Tony tucks in close to Steve’s side, resting his head upon his husband’s chest.

“How’s Riri in the field? Have you gotten used to the new suit in town?” he asks Steve.

For decades, Steve and Tony had worked well together as Captain America and Iron Man, their movements synchronized and fighting styles proving to be highly complementary with each other, but it had been years since they last teamed up on the field. Iron Man had taken a toll on Tony’s body, and he simply had been unable to pilot the suit as he aged. The day Steve benched him permanently, they had gotten into an argument. Pepper no longer donned the Rescue suit and even Rhodey had long retired as War Machine at that point, but Tony had been stubborn, had refused to accept the limitations of his body while the soul was still willing.

 _Are you that eager to die? Is that what this is?_ Steve had raged.

Tony refused to speak to him for a week after.

“She’s doing very well. All of them are,” Steve replies, holding him loosely, his breath rustling through Tony’s hair. “You should be proud.”

“It was a team effort. You should give yourself some credit. Oh, like twelve percent?”

“How generous of you,” Steve says flatly, prompting Tony to go on the defense.

“Well, you’re sharing with me. And Bucky. And Nat and Clint. Then there’s Kate and Thor. And let’s not forget Banner and–”

“Alright, alright. I get it. Twelve percent is plenty.”

He looks up, meeting Steve’s eyes. “Good, because I’m crediting everyone else involved with four percent, but we get more because I pay for everything, design everything, and make everybody look cooler, and you get half that credit because community property laws and all.”

Steve quirks a brow, displeased by the insinuation he isn’t pulling his weight.

“And you lead them,” Tony concedes.

“Hm,” he nods in agreement. “The Avengers… that’s our baby.”

“And our baby is thriving.”

They’ll be there for Steve long after–

“Hey… you okay there, honey?” Tony asks, frowning as he wipes the corner of Steve’s eyes with an errant swipe of his thumb.

Steve kisses him on the closest side of his forehead. “Yeah… It’s just. I love you, Tony. I love you so much.”

“I love you, too, Steve,” Tony says, angling his head up to return the kiss on the corner of his mouth. “And don’t you worry, okay? Everything is going to work out exactly the way it’s supposed to.”

Steve signals F.R.I.D.A.Y. to turn down the lights and holds Tony close, wishing they could stay like this forever. “Good night, sweetheart.”

“Sweet dreams.”

* * *

Steve wakes the following morning to Tony having drifted further away from him in the night, resting squarely on his side of the bed, turned on his side, facing away from him.

He gets up carefully, sliding out from under the covers to avoid rousing his husband. After all, the man deserves a lie-in now and then. He tip toes into the master bathroom for his morning ablutions, slipping into some workout pants from the attached closet in preparation for his run, but when he exits the bathroom heading towards the door, he looks over to find that Tony hasn’t rolled over as he is wont to do, unconsciously drawn into the warm spot Steve left behind.

He is also preternaturally still.

Dread pooling in his belly, Steve rounds the bed, slow and disbelieving. Tony’s eyes are closed, his arms limp and curled out in front of him. Steve watches for a breath, for the rise and fall of his chest, but it doesn’t come.

“Tony?” He whispers, his voice breaking. Slowly, tentatively, he reaches out to shake him gently by the shoulder, but Tony is cold and stiff.

Bereft, Steve gathers Tony’s body in his arms, cradling him close, the silence of their bedroom broken only by his sobs and keening wails. 

* * *

Steve is numb.

F.R.I.D.A.Y. had called the mortuary he and Tony had contracted years ago in the event of the latter’s inevitable death to execute the details they had settled upon. Tony would have preferred to be cremated, but he knew Steve wanted some place to visit on occasion, so he had opted for burial in an exclusive cemetery upstate. It’s a shady spot, overlooking a grove of trees. In autumn, Steve can watch the leaves turn and remember their time together. Tony thought it said something poignant about death, but the exact words had escaped him at the time.

For his part, Steve had tried not to dwell on it, but now, it’s all he can think about.

There’s no escape from this, this weight on his chest, the cage of his own mind, aching for what he has irretrievably lost. The grief, the bone-deep want… it’s suffocating and all-consuming. He doesn’t know how he survived those first hours. The coroner had come; Bucky had to hold him back, and now… Now, he goes through the motions, attending the funeral, the burial and will reading in turn. Predictably, Tony had left a few knickknacks to various friends and colleagues but the bulk of his estate is passed on to Steve. Steve barely notices. He doesn’t even acknowledge the other mourners, their soft condolences might as well be white noise.

Honestly, he doesn’t know what he would have done without Bucky.

“I’m here for you, Stevie. Anything you want; anything you need, okay?” Bucky offers, holding him tight, holding him together. It’s what Steve and Tony had done for Bucky in the wake of Nat’s death. Steve doesn’t know what to say, how to ask for what he needs…

(Doesn’t even know what he needs, what can possibly make any of this better.)

Luckily, Bucky had known instinctively. He had come when he heard, immediately and without question, bringing only the clothes on his back. He stayed in the guest room with an inconsolable Steve, who struggled to even sleep, much less in the bedroom he previously shared with his late husband. But now, with others surrounding the recent widower for a spell and with limited time to prepare, Bucky had returned home to pack and stash an overnight bag in his car, ready to come home with Steve directly after the funeral, to stay an indeterminate amount of time while his best friend settles into his new normal.

Without Tony.

And so it comes as quite a shock when Steve and Bucky enter the Stark-Rogers home to find Tony on the couch.

Or rather, a holoprojection of his late husband, blue and transparent, but unmistakably Tony as he had been shortly before his death.

The hologram looks over its shoulder as Steve freezes on the threshold. Behind him, Bucky drops his bag. The three of them can only stare at each other, at a loss for words.

‘Tony’ is the first to break the silence. “What’s the matter, honey? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”


	2. Oh, the Humanity!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘Tony’ insists he is the real Tony Stark in every way that matters. Steve is not convinced.

“What the hell?” Bucky says, sidestepping Steve to stand between them.

“Too soon?”

“Is this some sort of sick joke?” he spits out as he stalks forward, eyeing the surrounding furniture and alcoves, looking for the source of the image so he can smash it to bits.

“Not a joke, I’m afraid, though perhaps that icebreaker was in poor taste,” the hologram admits, rising up from its seat on the couch to stand, its arms crossed and body language tense in the same fashion as Tony when nervous.

“You think?” Bucky furiously searches for the elusive projector, leaving no stone unturned. His back straightens fractionally when he realizes he’s responding to a recording before he scowls and pointedly ignores Tony. “Where the fuck is it? Stevie, anything look out of place to you?” He says as he turns to look back at Steve, who hasn’t moved from the threshold.

He’s still staring at the AI, looking bewildered, pained, on the verge of breaking.

Bucky returns to his side. “Hey… maybe you should go to the guest room. I’ll find the projector and turn it off, yeah?”

But the AI interrupts. “Steve honey, I’m sorry you had to find out this way, but I didn’t know how to tell you before.” It even sounds remorseful. It doesn’t quite look at them; its face turned downward and fingers running over its scalp.

“Tell me what?”

“It’s a pre-recorded message, Steve,” Bucky assures him. “He can’t hear you.”

“I’m not pre-recorded, Manchurian Candidate,” the AI bites back, thoroughly annoyed. “You think you could give Steve and me a minute?”

Bucky rounds on the hologram, squaring his shoulders, itching for a fight he likely can’t win considering his opponent is noncorporeal. “You think I’d–”

But then Steve places a hand on his shoulder. “Bucky please… just give us a minute, alright?”

Bucky pauses. “…Okay, but only because you asked,” he acquiesces, looking sympathetically at Steve. He might not like it, but if it’s for Steve– “I’ll be in the next room _when_ you need me.” He gives ‘Tony’ the stink-eye as he walks past his best friend to retrieve his bag from the threshold before heading out towards the guest room and slamming the door shut.

The AI waits a beat, becoming slightly twitchy as his fingertips dance across his inner elbow. “Thanks,” it mumbles.

Steve is hunched over, his body language closed. “Is this a joke?” he whispers, anguish clear in his tone.

“No, honey… It’s–” The AI advances a half-step and reaches out, its hand stopping short of Steve’s bicep. Its fingers curl back as it slowly withdraws, as if realizing its tactile limitations. “It’s something I’ve been working on for the last several months, and… Well, I knew I wasn’t going to last much longer, and you saw what happened to Bucky after Nat. I just… I wanted to figure out a way to be there for you, so I built an AI, imbued it with all my memories and thought patterns – my consciousness, you know – and I had it set to activate after the death of what you might call my mortal vessel, but… well, I’ve been holding off for a few days, and I thought… after the funeral, maybe–”

“No.”

“Sorry?”

“No,” Steve repeats. He takes a step back, his eyes squeezed shut, arms bent, and clawed hands rigorously massaging the sides of his head in disbelief even as he realizes with dawning horror exactly what Tony had done. “You’re not him.”

The AI holds up its hands in front of him in placation, a decidedly human gesture that seemed out of place for such a being. “I uploaded the contents of my brain to a private server every night before bed; I updated the record, but not just that. I’m not just a repository of memory. I recorded every errant thought, every nuance from the day, tracking the creation of new memories as well as the decline of the old. The way I think, my very consciousness survived. I wanted to come back for you, honey. I’m sorry for not telling you before, but this way… this way we can be together for as long as you need me.”

Steve shakes his head. “I buried Tony today,” he mutters.

“I understand that there might be an… adjustment period.”

“I buried my husband!” His voice cracks, ending in a sob.

Bucky barrels out of the room to collect his best friend. He positions himself bodily between him and the AI. “Okay, we’re done. You had your minute. Hell, you even got an extra one out of respect for the dead.”

“Come on, Buck–”

“Haven’t you done enough?” He snaps, as he turns to console Steve and lead him back towards the guest room.

* * *

The AI spends the next several days hidden, but Steve knows it’s there, watching him, waiting.

He desperately misses Tony, spending his days thinking about him and his nights dreaming of better times. And when he wakes, still groggy, in the precious seconds before he remembers, he reaches over to find only Bucky in the space where Tony used to sleep. Now _that_ is a whole new type of heartbreak.

“It gets easier,” Bucky had told him. “I know it doesn’t seem like it, but it’s true. Eventually, you move on.”

“Have you?”

Bucky doesn’t answer, so Steve simply nods. “Some do, but not us.”

“I still miss her,” he admits, “but it’s not quite so bad as it used to be in the early days. You just need to hang in there for a spell, cry when you need to, remember the good times, and come to appreciate that you both made each other happy, even if it was only for a while.”

Though he never says as much, Steve knows Bucky is pissed at Tony on his behalf, angry that he made the grieving process that much more difficult by ensuring Steve cannot move on, effectively haunting his loving widower from beyond the grave. The AI is there, Steve knows. It is waiting for something… an opportunity, perhaps? Bucky has inferred as much as well, so he sticks close to Steve’s side, hyperaware of any unwanted artificial persons who might pop up and take advantage of his friend’s frail state.

Steve knows it’s not Tony, not really, but sometimes… sometimes he’s tempted to pretend, if only for a little while.

And so, when they’re short on potatoes for Nat’s famous borscht, Steve asks Bucky to fetch some from the store while he preps the rest of the vegetables.

“You sure you’ll be okay.”

“I’m not going to kill myself with a mandolin,” Steve deadpans, already peeling the beets and carrots to be grated and sliced, respectively.

Bucky leaves when Steve starts chopping the carrots, and when Steve hears the door close, he stops, placing the knife down on the cutting board and palming the counter. His shoulders collapse as he dips his head low and breathes deeply, trying to keep calm.

“I know you’re there. You can come out,” he calls out into the emptiness of the kitchen, without turning around.

“Sorry, I wasn’t sure… I wanted to give you your space,” Tony’s voice says from opposite the island.

Steve turns, leaning back against the counter to confront the AI wearing his husband’s face. He loosely palms the edge, in case he loses his nerves and needs something to hold onto, something real and solid, unlike the creature before him. “Like that’s possible. I bet you’ve already tapped into the security cameras.”

He’s still as beautiful as ever. It makes Steve’s breath catch and expand into a solid lump in his throat.

“…Guilty as charged,” the AI confesses.

“What do you want?”

“I want what I’ve always wanted: For you to be okay; for you to be happy,” it replies. “If you need me to go away for that to happen... Well, I’d do just about anything for you, Steve.”

“I… I don’t want you gone. I wish–” He wishes Tony was alive, but barring that, that Tony had discussed this with him at the very least. Steve would have told him not to bother, that nothing – no one, much less a piece of technology – could ever replace him. “I wish…”

“I know, Steve, and I’m sorry. I’m real sorry I sprung this on you. I’m sorry you had to see me dead.”

“You’re not Tony,” Steve hisses, low but harsh.

The AI looks ready to argue the point, but ultimately decides against it, settling on: “…I can be, if you let me.”

“Never,” Steve declares, spinning around to look down at the cutting board, his fists braced against the edge. The quartz groans, threatening to crumble in his hands. “God, why do you have to look so much like… like that?” The AI has Tony’s same wrinkles and laugh lines around its mouth and eyes as well as his posture, slightly stooped with age. It didn’t need to carry itself like that. It didn’t ache in the mornings nor when it was about to rain. The AI is just putting on a show, pretending to be the man it wasn’t.

“I can change, honey.”

Steve only grunts, unwilling to dignify that with a response. Tony would have never changed. For anyone. He was who he was, take him or leave him. Yet another reason why this AI isn’t his husband.

As if reading his mind, the AI amends, “I will change for you.”

Steve returns to chopping carrots for dinner.

* * *

Bucky isn’t a fan of the AI’s more overt presence now that Steve has given the go-ahead for it to run loose.

“You know this isn’t helping him, right?” Bucky tells it while Steve is in the shower.

The AI sniffs. “We’re just going to have to agree to disagree on that, soldier.” It would rather be spending time with a naked and glistening Steve, but Steve had put the kibosh on that idea. Something about boundaries.

Bucky looks displeased. “He’s never going to tell you himself, but all you’re doing is preventing him from moving on by tethering him to an old ghost.”

* * *

A few weeks later, shortly after Steve had gotten somewhat used to the AI’s presence (though never fully comfortable), he notices something that makes him do a double-take. The projection’s hair is fuller and its van dyke smoother, less bristly. Even its skin is less liver-spotted and wrinkly than it had been previously.

“You like?” the AI asks. “I thought I’d age down a bit. Have a glow-up as they used to say. I always thought I was rather dashing at sixty-two. Don’t you think?”

Tony had been, but Steve isn’t about to admit that, not to his doppelganger.

“I could also go younger, if you’d prefer. We met when I was 41. You want to see me at 25?” Before Steve can respond, the AI’s visage ages backward, its hair darkening while its skin tightens, becoming markedly supple and youthful. Its body fills out, and it even grows an inch taller, its posture visibly improving until it appears younger than Steve had ever seen Tony in life, younger than Steve himself.

“Stop that,” he barks out, turning away and squeezing his eyes shut. “I don’t… I– I can’t…” He loved his Tony, the passage of veritable decades deepening the affection, the respect and admiration he had held for him. This… this new not-Tony wasn’t going to sway him by such shallow means.

“Sorry, Steve. I always thought… well, maybe if I was younger, we’d match better, you know, and now I can be younger, at least physically.”

_We’d match better._

It had been an insecurity Tony had expressed to him before, when their May-December romance had become so decidedly and obviously flipped in Steve’s favor. Despite the fact that Steve was the one old enough to be Tony’s father, the press had been merciless, and Tony had tried Botox and hair dye to keep the aging process at bay. Steve had reassured him he didn’t love him in spite of his wrinkles – after all, his laugh lines were evidence _he had laughed_ – but because of all the wonderful years they had spent together. And then, more publicly, he railed against ageism in the media, defending his husband’s right to age gracefully and unmolested and swearing to never give so much as an interview to any media outlet that implied otherwise.

_Forever._

And to this day, Steve never gave the Daily Mail or TMZ so much as a comment.

“If you really have Tony’s memories, you would know I never cared about that.”

“But I did,” and Steve looks up to see the AI having aged itself to approximately Tony’s mid-forties, around the time they had married. “I pretended I didn’t, but it did bother me, and now… now I’m in a position to do something about it. So… how about a compromise?” He holds his hands out, palms up, and chin tucked with an eyebrow raised up towards his hairline, awaiting approval of his new look.

“…Okay fine. That– that’s fine.”

“Any notes?”

“Aside from the fact that you’re stealing my dead husband’s appearance?” Steve states woodenly.

“Yes. Obviously.”

He frowns. “You are a Grade-A jerk. You know that?”

“You know you love me just as I am,” and that voice, the bravado and confidence… it’s just so achingly familiar. And yet…

And _yet_ –

“I loved _Tony_.”

“Of course, honey. What did I say?”

* * *

Steve travels upstate to visit Tony every weekend, always bringing a jug of water to wash the gravestone and fresh flowers. He knows the gardener spruces up the memorial, but Steve feels better doing it himself sometimes.

“Hey sweetheart. I brought your favorite flower arrangement… big,” he holds up the bouquet of various wildflowers in reds and yellows, “Just the way you like it.”

Tony had never been a shrinking violet, always the flashiest one in any crowd, the center of attention. It had grated on Steve at times, but now… now he truly missed how much Tony’s very presence just filled a room.

Truth told he missed everything about his husband, even the things that used to annoy him. He would give anything to hear his voice again, if only to listen to the man loudly complain about the dishes Steve had left to soak in the sink, forcing Tony to take matters into his own hands.

 _But your fingers are already so prune-y,_ Steve had quipped, his eyes large and deceptively innocent.

 _Okay, one – that was only funny the first ten times you said it,_ Tony had complained, scrubbing a plate, _and two –_ _fuck you_.

Steve had stepped up behind his grumpy husband, slipping his arms around his waist and bending over to rest his head next to Tony’s, swaying them both gently side-to-side. _That could be arranged,_ he had murmured, low and sultry.

God, he missed Tony.

And so, Steve talks to him often, cries sometimes. Occasionally, he even craves a response. It’s not healthy, but when the need overwhelms him, he finds himself turning to Tony’s AI for answers.

“Did Tony… was Tony…” he struggles to ask. “Did I make him happy?”

The AI cants its head to the side, its eyebrows drawn together in confusion. “Every single day, Steve,” he replies without hesitation.

* * *

Steve can’t keep away from the Avengers forever, but when he returns to active duty, the AI tags along as well, traveling instantaneously through the Stark network that runs both their home and the compound.

“Oh… Oh Steve,” Hawkeye sympathizes, placing a delicate hand on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry.” She doesn’t clarify whether she means Tony’s death or the presence that haunts him still. Probably both.

The AI crosses its arms, clearly offended, but doesn’t say anything.

“Okay, stop gawking,” Bucky tells the assembled crowd of superheroes. “I heard Vision and Parker have been going easy on you. I won’t be so lenient.”

Steve loses track of the AI soon after, but he finds it later holed up in the labs alongside Riri.

“Look, those EMP grenades aren’t going to upgrade themselves, and I’d do it myself if I could, but… noncorporeal,” he passes a blue hand through the handheld device. “Take pity on an old man.”

She folds her arms and leans back into her chair, looking up at the AI with a healthy dose of skepticism. “Not that old anymore.”

“You noticed huh? Told you I was hot.”

“Gross.”

He places his hands on his hips, squaring his shoulders. “Oh please. I’m a married man, and you’re like a zygote.”

“A zygote with hands,” she waves them in front of her, flexing her fingers for good measure. “Jealous?”

“If you can do jazz hands, you can crack open that grenade without fritzing my projection,” he points out.

Steve clears his throat from behind them, and when they turn, he addresses Ironheart. “Riri, Bucky’s looking for you for sparring practice. You’re up against Arachne.”

“I’ll be along in a minute. Just catching up with Mr. Stark.”

“That is _not_ Mr. Stark,” Steve replies forcefully.

She cants her head to the side, looking confused. “Mr. Stark-Rogers, then? I didn’t think you were so formal.”

“That is _not_ Tony,” he further clarifies, trying to tamp down his temper.

The AI comes to her defense, trying to reason with him. “Come on, Steve. She’s just a kid.”

“You should never have come,” he barks out, directing his rage at the ultimate source of his ire. He massages his temple with his fingertips, trying to stave off a headache. “Just– just go back to the house. I’ll deal with you later.”

“Steve–”

“Go home,” he orders in his Captain America voice, deep and forceful.

This time, the AI obeys, blipping out of existence.

Riri frowns, fixing Steve with a disapproving glare.

“I don’t need any lip from you, either,” he says, his tone suddenly weary, defeated. Dealing with the AI is exhausting enough as it is without adding the silent reproach of a goddamn teenager (young adult?).

“Is that how you speak to him these days?” she asks instead. “No wonder he came back here.”

Steve sighs. “It came back here because it was programmed to. I know the AI seems like Tony, but it’s not. And it’s better all around if you’d stop pretending–”

“I’m not pretending… He’s more than a machine, you know.”

“Yeah, it’s an artificial intelligence designed by my late husband. Who is dead. And now it lives in my home, actually thinks it’s Tony, and I don’t have the heart to switch it off” _because I’m weak_ goes unsaid. _Because I miss Tony, and the AI is close enough that I can almost pretend he’s still here some days._ Not often, of course, but often enough.

“ _He_ has all his memories. The technological leaps he’s capable of… it’s just not possible with a straight-up input-output computer,” she insists. “He actually _thinks_ like a person, same as the old man even.”

“He is _not_ the same. He is a machine.”

“He’s as much a person as Vision.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Would you speak to a real person like you just spoke to him?”

If they impersonated his recently-deceased beloved… Maybe.

Instead, Steve explains, “Look. The point is… the point is that he’s not Tony. He’s not my husband. He’s not–” he recalls Tony’s face, lit up with laughter, whipped cream smeared in his facial hair from when he had kissed Steve after a successful charity pie throw. It’s overlaid with that very same expression, now transparent and blue. “…and looking at him just – I don’t know – it sets me off, alright? It’s his face and his laugh and his mannerisms. They’re the same, but it’s just a copy, an imitation of…” he ruffles his hair roughly. “You know what? Forget it. You’ll understand when you’re older.”

The AI is an imposter, a perversion of who the man he loved once was, and Riri appears to be forgetting that, forgetting him. How long before the others follow suit? Tony is – was – _irreplaceable_.

Riri pauses for a beat. She considers her words, weighing them against what Steve is trying (with great difficulty) to convey, before gently stating her piece. “Mr. Stark… well, he must have loved you, you know. Whatever you think of the AI he built, that’s what his presence means. Your husband loved you.”

“Yeah… you think I don’t know that,” And he’s an ungrateful ass for not appreciating the effort, but he can’t. He just can’t. It’s too much, too soon.

“You don’t have to think of him as Tony, but… he’s not a bad guy in his own right, once you get to know him, if you’re willing to give him a chance.”

Steve mulls it over. “I’ll think about it.”

Riri doesn’t look convinced.

* * *

When Steve returns home, the AI is nowhere in sight, so he summons him with a resigned “I know you can hear me just fine, but I’d rather talk to you face to face.”

He materializes across the room where he settles into a chair. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to sit while you detail all the ways I was out of line today.”

 _Okay, maybe I deserved that._ Steve sighs, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. “I just wanted to… apologize,” he begins, and the AI looks surprised. “I know none of this is your fault.” _No one ever asks to be born._ “It’s not Tony’s either. It just is what it is, and I haven’t been… _fair_ to you. For that, I am sorry. I hope we can start over.”

The AI blinks into existence in front of him, holding out his hand for a shake. Steve accepts, carefully threading his hand into the empty mold left by the AI so as not to pass through him entirely.

“Steve,” Steve introduces himself.

The AI nods. “Tony.”

“No.”

“Fine,” he tips his head to one side, his manner pensive. “Stark?” he tries again.

It’s not ideal, but then again none of this is.

“Nice to meet you, Stark.”


	3. Steve and The Real Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stark asks Steve for permission to build himself a body in Tony’s image.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, there’s this problem in the real world with more visible body transplants (face, hands, penis) where the patient psychologically rejects certain allografts and asks them to be removed. This is largely a result of dealing with the idea of always seeing and being reminded of the dead person the part originally belonged to or maybe disappointment in its functionality/appearance or perhaps because it is such a huge change from what they used to have. However, I have this idea that when AI Tony looks into creating a body for himself, he would have a hard time psychologically and emotionally inhabiting one that looks so vastly different from his own self-image. He struggles to ask Steve if he can use Tony’s likeness on a permanent basis because that’s what he needs, but seeing the actual physical body is going to be hard on Steve.

It is a challenge to separate Stark from memories of his husband, but Steve manages for the most part. It helps to mentally point out the differences.

“Good morning, Steve,” Stark greets him every morning as he drinks a virtual cup of coffee. “Slept well, I hope.”

In life, Tony had never gotten up before Steve, unless he happened to work through the night, an occurrence which decreased in frequency as he aged.

Steve is about to return the greeting, but Stark stiffens when Bucky enters moments later. “And a good morning to you as well,” he adds.

Bucky grunts. “You still here? I thought you’d have set up shop in the compound by now.” He had been subtly (and much less subtly as of late) encouraging Stark to leave, to attend to the Avengers if he had to be anywhere at all. “We could use your expertise behind the scenes.”

“All work and no play, as they say,” Stark retorts, his holographic mug disappearing into the ether when he puts it down.

Bucky and Tony had buried the hatchet long ago, but it seems that the old antagonism had resurfaced when faced with the AI clone of Steve’s dead husband. It’s yet another distinction between Stark and Tony.

“We’re almost ready to go,” Steve interjects, grabbing a few nutrition bars for breakfast. “Why don’t you get going, and we’ll meet you at the compound, yeah?”

Stark looks like he wants to argue – they are at least ten minutes from stepping foot out the door – but he doesn’t, disappearing with a sigh and an annoyed set to his jaw.

…Tony would have argued.

Steve turns to Bucky. “I just wanted to say thank you for staying with me these past few months,” he begins.

“Don’t mention it, Stevie. You did the same for me.”

“Yeah, it was great having you around,” he says, and it is, “But I think I’m going to be okay now, so if you wanted to go back home, that’d be fine.” Bucky still paid for an apartment he only used for the occasional supply run when he was running low on clothing options and metal alloy polish for his arm.

“Are you sure, especially with the…” he eyes the chair where Stark had been sitting not minutes before.

“Yeah, I think I have that handled as well. I know he’s not– he’s not Tony. I won’t forget that anytime soon, and maybe it’s time we both returned to our normal routines.”

Bucky scrunches his brow. “Alright, but only if you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

* * *

A giant octopus emerges from Upper Bay at the behest of a tribe of Atlantean rogues and is attacking New York Harbor, crushing and sinking shipping vessels as well as taking out the support beams of the pier. The Avengers respond, splitting their ranks between damage control, search and rescue, and battling the beast itself.

Ironheart offers air support alongside Captain Marvel while Captain America leads the ground troops, but the creature is strong, it’s tentacles having the ability to crush cargo ships like tin cans while remaining dexterous, slippery and pliable. Steve manages to avoid the brunt of its strikes as he and the others fight, trying to find an angle to gain the upper hand against such an enemy. He slides down the tentacle, attempting to take out the creature’s eyes with his shield, but it grasps him in its coiled hold, attempting to squeeze the very life out of him even as Steve holds the undulating tentacles at bay with all his strength, but it’s getting harder to do so, the tentacles being like putty pushing in at all sides, suffocating him.

“Could use an assist!” Steve grunts into the comms.

“On it,” Ironheart replies, but in the next minute he hears a soft _Oof!_ as she runs into trouble, getting caught up with her own unseen battle against the creature. “Not on it,” she amends. “Carol?”

“A little busy,” she states, the exertion clear in her tone. “Can you hold on a minute, Steve?”

Steve can’t. The firm squish of flesh crowds him, compressing to the point of pain. Steve can’t move, can’t breathe, and he wonders how long before his body gives out.

And then just as suddenly, the tentacles loosen. Ironheart swoops in, grasping him by an outstretched arm then pulling up and away from the fray.

He’s just about to thank her when he spots another Ironheart still locked in battle against the beast, using her repulsors to try to carve into its tentacles at the base, to disarm it permanently. Steve’s grip slackens with surprise, and he nearly slips out, only to be pulled up once again by the scruff of his uniform as he and the second Ironheart barrel into the pier, toppling end over end to land roughly amongst the debris.

“Need an evac, Cap?” Tony’s voice, achingly familiar, filters through Ironheart’s spare armor.

“…Stark?”

“In the flesh… sort of,” he replies. “But seriously, you good? They need the backup, so I’m getting back out there.”

After acknowledging Steve’s curt nod, Stark launches into the sky, zipping between Carol and the real Ironheart to provide assistance where needed.

Steve stands, recalls his shield to his side, and rejoins the fight.

* * *

In the aftermath of the battle, when the octopus retreats from the harbor, first responders canvass the area, and the Avengers are left to limp back to their compound, Steve orders in a veritable feast for the Avengers, a spread containing all their favorites. Being unable to partake, Stark had retreated to the lab, to repair and replace the Ironheart armor he had ‘borrowed.’

Overall, the AI seems quieter, more contemplative, even long after when they return home. Steve thinks nothing of it and doesn’t discourage his silence. Stark isn’t the only one with something on his mind.

It all comes to a head one evening shortly after Bucky had packed up and returned home. Steve had put on an old Bing Crosby record while he set about turning out the sheets and blankets in the guest room for cleaning.

Stark watches him from the doorway then approaches, waiting for Steve to register his presence followed by the exchange of the usual pleasantries before segueing into the meat of the matter. “Okay, I’m going to need you to listen to me for five minutes without interruption. You think you can do that, Steve?”

Steve shucks the cover off the pillow. “About?”

“Does it matter? It’s five minutes. You aren’t going to like it, but hear me out,” he replies, “Please.”

Steve stops, dropping his bundle of laundry into the center of the bed to turn and face Stark, giving him his full, undivided attention. “Alright. Five minutes.”

“It’s been… difficult these past few months. For you, but also for me as well. I’m used to… Well, I’m used to tinkering with things, interacting with the physical world, but–” he passes his hand through the bed, bringing it back up to flex his fist, staring at it all the while. “I’m going a little stir crazy here, and piloting the armor again just opened up a whole can of worms. I– I want to ask Dr. Cho to use the Cradle to build me a body. A synthetic one, like Vision’s.”

Steve is perplexed. “You don’t have to ask my permission. If you want a body, I’m not going to stop you.” Maybe it will actually help if Stark looked diff–

And suddenly Steve knows exactly why he is asking him first. Steve looks away. He wants to say no, absolutely not, but–

“Does it have to be him?”

Stark massages his temples. “Psychologically-speaking, it would be best for me if my outward appearance matched my inner self-image. It’s rare, but I run the risk of rejection otherwise, and– and I only get one shot at this.”

“What do you mean?”

And now, the AI looks uncomfortable. “I– Well, look Steve. If I had thought that you could move on without me, I wouldn’t have done what I did. But perhaps I was wrong.”

Steve raises a brow.

“I know, it surprised me, too, but here we are,” Stark concedes. “It was a selfish decision made without your input. I wasn’t being fair to you. I can see that now. So… when I transfer my consciousness to this physical vessel, I’m transferring everything. No backups. If something happens to my core, that’s it.”

“What do you mean ‘that’s it’?” Steve can hardly believe it. “Are you saying you’ll…”

“Die. Permanently. Mortality is back on the menu. I can persist indefinitely of course, but a good hit to my central processing unit and I’m toast.”

“Stark–”

“It’s my decision,” he says, shutting down any protest Steve may offer. “But it also means I get only one chance at transference, and I don’t know how I will handle the psychological dissonance,” he sucks in a breath he doesn’t need out of habit, letting it out slow. “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”

Steve remains silent.

Stark doesn’t exactly beg, but he does start to bargain. “I don’t have to stay here after. This is still your home, and I– I could return to the compound. Get a room there. Spend my time with Riri in the labs. Woman has been switching my stuff around, mixing the bolts and screws. How can she work like that? It can’t stand, I tell you–”

It’s an awful sort of thing, to watch a man plead for his very existence.

“Alright. You can– you can use his body template.” It wouldn’t be fair for Steve to ask Stark to risk everything to allay his own anxiety and discomfort.

“…Thank you, Steve.”

* * *

The earliest, most complete body scans of Tony Stark available in the format and resolution the Cradle requires are from his early forties, shortly after the formation of the Avengers. Stark could probably mock up something younger, something even better than the original had been, but Steve had already been distressed enough at the de-aging process in his noncorporeal form, so Stark approves the model stored in the Cradle with no revisions.

Once given the go-ahead, Dr. Cho crafts him a new body, grafting synthetic tissue of various firmness and textures onto a skeleton of Vibranium to replicate muscle and skin, creating a life-like form, soft and warm, an animated doll of sorts. Immortal and non-aging, his body can theoretically last forever while the power source rooted in his chest can run for several lifetimes and be swapped out as needed. And finally, implanted deep within his skull, protected by a cage of Vibranium, is a smooth pearl, the seat of Stark’s consciousness.

Stark’s eyes flutter open as he comes online.

“Welcome back, Mr. Stark,” Dr. Cho says, handing him a mirror.

Stark pats his cheek, his hair, feeling the soft synthetic strands, so much like his own from long ago. “It’s good to be back.”

* * *

Steve catches a glimpse of Stark at the compound shortly after. He can’t stop staring. It’s Tony in the flesh, but also not, not really anyway. His heart pounds painfully; his breath goes short. It’s like losing his Tony all over again. He retreats to the bathroom to splash some water on his face, to give himself a moment to adjust to this new reality of someone else wearing his dead husband’s skin.

“Are you going to be okay, Stevie?” A voice startles him from behind. It’s Bucky, of course, one of the few people capable of sneaking up on him (though admittedly that’s a less exclusive club at the moment, considering the circumstances).

Still dripping and hunched over, anchored by both hands planted on either side of the sink, Steve replies, “Yeah… yeah, I’m going to be fine. I– I just need a minute.”

“He’s already secluded himself in Banner’s labs. Something about improving the tensile strength of Parker’s web.”

It’s an excuse, and a thin one at that for many reasons, chief of which are A: Tony is no chemist. B: Peter had practically perfected the solution himself decades ago – he could probably hold down a rocket launch with his formula – and finally C: even if he had needed help, Peter would have asked Banner first.

“I’ll be out soon.”

* * *

Steve doesn’t see Tony again that day nor for the next several days. It’s a relief at first, but with both Bucky and Stark gone so quickly one after the other, he does get lonely at home. He listens to the radio, puts on his old records, and reads, but it doesn’t change the almost-eerie stillness of his home. It’s too quiet, too empty, and reminds him too much of the early days after he had been defrosted.

…Perhaps he should get a dog.

 _No dogs,_ he remembers Tony telling him when they had discussed it early in their marriage. _They’re so much work, and I do not fancy housing a creature that would chew up my good Italian shoes._

And then later, after they had adopted Dodger, Tony had complained that the resulting dander had clogged up his sensitive tech. Steve had asked him why he didn’t just lock Dodger out of his lab. Tony had looked scandalized _. Have you seen his puppy-dog eyes?_ He had asked, scritching the dog in question behind the ears. Despite his size, Dodger still considered himself a puppy and had chosen to lounge awkwardly across Tony’s lap. He then licked up the right side of Tony’s face, ruining his carefully coifed hair, not that Tony had noticed. _What kind of monster do you take me for?_

And later still, when Steve had held Tony as he cried. _That’s it! No more pets that I will be forced to outlive,_ he had declared, sniffling and red-eyed. _It’s turtles or bust!_

 _What would Stark think of a dog?_ Steve wonders before giving himself a mental shake. Why is he even considering how an AI would react to his choice of pet? It’s not like Stark lives here, so he doesn’t get a vote.

…Right?

* * *

Steve finds Stark in the robotics lab. Alone. He’s making improvements to the fit, durability, and functionality of his own personal Iron Man armor now that he plans to pilot it from within instead of remotely. Mercifully, Stark’s armor is black instead of the signature red and gold of Tony’s Iron Man.

“Stark?” Steve calls out, startling the man, who slices his thumb on a sharp metal edge.

“Ow!” Stark sticks his thumb in his mouth as he turns around. He pulls it out. “Christ, Steve. A little warning next time.”

But Steve is looking at the red liquid beading up from the cut on his thumb. “Is that– are you…”

_If you prick us, do we not bleed?_

“It’s a mechanical lubricant that resembles blood, but it will heal in a quick minute, once the nanites register the damage– aaaand there we go,” Stark replies, as the skin stitches itself up right before Steve’s very eyes.

It is mildly disturbing, but Steve has a similar superpower (though not quite as instantaneous). “You feel pain, too?”

“Pain is a defensive and adaptive mechanism required by all creatures, organic and synthetic. It protects us from harmful stimuli.” Stark explains, shrugging. “But unlike you, I can shut it off when needed, so you know… that’s a neat little trick. Can come in handy some day.” He wipes the oil from his hands, tossing the towel on the workstation. “Anyways, I assume that you didn’t come all this way to ask about whether I can feel pain like a real boy, so… what can I do for you, Cap?”

He had prepared for this, had considered the issue from every angle, always reaching the same conclusion. Steve clears his throat. “Well, um… I just wanted to say it was… wrong of me to have you move out.”

“It’s fine. I offered, so it’s fine.”

“No, it’s not,” he presses onward. “You lived there for months, and it was your home, so I’m sorry about that, and… and well, the house is kind of lonely without anyone around. I was thinking – only if you wanted – you could move back into the extra room. Because there is a free one available. But only if you want it.”

And now Stark sounds coy. “Why Cap… are you asking me to move in with you?”

“Not… not like that, but um…”

“No, I get it,” he states, dropping the almost flirtatious tone altogether. “The house is too empty. I used to feel the same way when you’d go on solo S.H.I.E.L.D. missions. At least, I always had the option of bringing over a bot or two for company.”

Steve wants to correct him. That it was Tony who used to get lonely, but he opts not to. Being in any kind of relationship – even just as friends – means Steve has to pick his battles, and the validity of Stark’s memories in this instance is not the hill on which he would choose to die.

* * *

It’s odd living with Stark in corporeal form in ways that should have been predictable. Unlike his holographic self, Stark takes up space now. Not just in the extra bedroom, but he also has an impressive array of toiletries spilled out over the counter of the guest bathroom, given that a synthetic body theoretically shouldn’t require as much maintenance as a real one. But there are hair styling products and tools as well as an unidentifiable spritz bottle that Stark must use to moisten(?) his synthetic skin. Steve can only guess as to its function. He even owns a bottle of Tony’s cologne.

Sometimes, when Stark walks into the kitchen early in the day to greet him fresh from his morning routine, the scent memory makes Steve’s eyes prickle.

“Cap, you okay there?”

 _God, this was a mistake, wasn’t it?_ But Steve is not the type to back down, especially if doing so would inconvenience another person.

“It’s nothing,” he replies, sipping his morning coffee. He briefly considers whether Stark would want a cup as well before disregarding the notion altogether. _Can Stark even have coffee?_ The deprivation would have killed Tony. Just another difference between the two.

“Want to carpool to the compound?” Stark offers.

“No, that’s okay. I need the run anyway.”

* * *

“I can’t believe you asked him to move in with you,” Bucky grumbles, when Steve barges in twenty minutes late, having needed a shower after his morning commute.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“…How?”

_How indeed._

“It just seemed wrong to boot him out of his home just because he acquired a new body,” Steve explains, but Bucky looks skeptical, so he goes on the defensive. “Look, he might not be Tony, but he does have all of Tony’s memories, and to go from being _the_ Tony Stark with all the world at your fingertips to someone without two nickels to rub together, someone who has to move into the equivalent of the army barracks to survive–”

“Now you’re just being dramatic. The Avengers Compound is _not_ the same as the army barracks,” Bucky points out. “It has all the amenities he could want, way more than what we had back in the day.” Steve should know better; he was in the military alongside him.

“You know what I mean. The point is that he remembers having everything, being a multibillionaire even, and now he’s navigating a world where he’s got no assets and nowhere else to go. I thought maybe… I don’t know, Buck. It’s sort of his home, too, and I had the room, so I thought maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.”

Bucky cants his head to the side, observing his friend before delivering his final judgment: “Just be careful, Stevie.”

And Steve is careful, for a while at least. He and Stark get along, with Stark having many of Tony’s same habits, and so they fall into a comfortable rhythm with each other. Sometimes, Steve can tell Stark wants more, with the way his gaze lingers on Steve at times, the way he pauses just outside his room and looks down the hall towards the master, and how his fingers brush Steve’s when he passes him the remote. Steve ignores it best he can for as long as he is able, until he simply can’t anymore.

Their wedding anniversary is coming up, him and Tony’s. Steve tries to ignore the date, throwing himself into his work, spending more time at the compound overlooking recent decisions and acquisitions by Stark Industries. SI belongs to him now, and he should take some interest in what they’re doing, or so he reasons.

But he has to go home some time.

It still comes as a shock to him when he returns late, and Stark is in the living room, watching his and Tony’s wedding video. He is the same age as Tony on the screen, his hair done up in the same style even and wearing one of his crisp suits.

Having heard Steve come in, Stark turns to acknowledge him. He looks at the clock and then sighs before standing to amble over into the kitchen where a nice dinner for one – steak with sautéed haricot vert, the only thing Tony had ever managed to cook with any proficiency – has long grown cold. He pulls down a tumbler and opens a fresh bottle of scotch Steve has never seen before, probably purchased that very same day with Stark’s Avengers stipend.

Steve steps towards the couch just as Stark returns with his drink.

“What are you doing?” Steve doesn’t specify if he means the scotch or the wedding video or both.

Stark gazes into his glass, his expression maudlin. “You know, even before I drink this for the very first time, I know what it’ll taste like. Smooth, smoky… intense. I remember the craving and the guilt, the doubt… the shame. I know this not only on an intellectual level but also on an emotional and sensory one as well. Because I remember, despite never partaking in this body,” he pauses and looks up at Steve. “Just like how I know exactly what you’d taste like, what it would feel like to have your tongue slip over mine, the sounds you’d make if we–”

“Stop. I don’t… it’s not…” Steve sputters as he takes a step back, finally settling on: “That’s private.”

_Those memories belong to the real Tony Stark._

“I remember our wedding forty-one years ago. What you said. How I felt–”

“How he felt. You might have all his memories, but you’re not him.”

There’s a peculiar glint in Stark’s eye. “Human memory is odd – the synapses are there, all the memories – but the ones that stay, those are the ones you think about over and over, strengthening the pathways while other, less-thought-of, less-remembered synapses are pruned. And that memory? The one he kept? He turned it over in his mind, polished to a high shine. Passed it onto me. That memory,” he tips his glass towards the video still playing on the screen, “was important to him, and it’s important to me.” He brings it to his lips, intending to take a sip. “Thirty-eight years five months sixteen days sober, huh?”

Before Steve can think of what he’s doing much less stop himself, he reaches out to grasp Stark by the forearm, nearly jostling the liquor from his grip.

“I just…” Steve withdraws his touch, curling his fingers into a fist by his side. “Tony was an alcoholic.”

Stark lifts a brow but doesn’t move to drink. “Hm… And if I’m not him, then there shouldn’t be an issue, should there? I’m not going to short-circuit. This body can process liquids just fine – even has a drainage system similar to what you’re used to – so don’t you worry about that.”

“But… but did he program his vices, his urges and responses, into you alongside…” _alongside everything else._ If Tony had a chance to start over, to remake himself from the ground up, would he have been self-destructive enough to include his worst traits, his worst impulses, and the heartbreaking results of both?

…Who is he kidding? Steve _had_ met Tony, hadn’t he? The man had the self-preservation instinct of a lemming.

Stark shrugs. He swirls the glass, watching the amber liquid tilt first to one side then the other. “Does it matter?”

“Tony worked hard on his sobriety. It was important to him.”

Steve must have said something wrong, because Stark snarls and nearly slams down the tumbler down on the coffee table with a heavy clink. “There. Happy?” he says pointedly, his tone bitter. “How come I’m only him when it suits you? When you need me to play a part?”

“I– I don’t…” Steve begins to backtrack, but he really has no defense for pressuring Stark to abstain, only that the sight of Tony drinking again had disturbed him, inspired a visceral reaction he couldn’t tamp down.

“Maybe you’re right,” Stark sneers. “I don’t know if I am a person in my own right or an echo, a ghost of someone else, someone dead. That’s a question for philosophers, and I’m a scientist. So maybe I’m not him, but I feel like him. Everything he felt, everything he thought… it’s in me,” he knocks against his chest over where his artificial heart thrums. “And seeing you, being around you… I just… I want–”

_I want what I can’t have._

It’s what Tony had screamed at him, all those years ago, in the moments before a fight had turned into a heavy makeout session had turned into a relationship where Steve proved that yes, Tony can have exactly what he wants; they both can.

The frustration, the anger and desire clear on Tony Stark’s face bleed together past and present. It takes Steve back to those earlier, simpler days.

Or at least that’s what Steve will tell himself later.

But for now, he steps in close, his hands pressed to either side of that familiar face, bending down to plant a fierce kiss upon those lips, muffling whatever Stark was going to say next. And– and the man responds _exactly_ like Tony, the way he nibbles on his bottom lip, swipes his tongue against Steve’s, how his hands are already making their way under Steve’s shirt to ghost feather-light over his chest. How long has it been since he felt Tony’s kiss? How long since he felt his body against his, warm and giving?

In the background, Rhodey and Bucky are on the screen, giving best men speeches and toasting the happy couple forty-one years past.

They’re fumbling with their clothes, pulling off each other’s shirts, shucking off pants quickly in desperation. Steve scoops Tony up from under his ass, lifting him up, walking the short distance to the couch and spilling him out onto it, following after to hover over him. Tony’s breath is hot and heavy against his neck as Steve wraps his hand around the other man’s erection – Tony’s dick, exactly as he remembered it from decades past, but Steve pays no heed. He is a man drowning in grief, grasping onto a life preserver in the shape of his beloved. If only– if only he can have this, just this, then maybe–

Trapped beneath Steve, Tony is reaching behind, under the couch, blindly grasping for a discrete box he stashes there for just such occasions when Steve can’t wait to reach the bedroom. He clumsily opens it and roots around its contents to produce a tube of slick. He squirts out a dollop, rubbing it warm and sliding over Steve’s erection, lubing him up for the main event. He kisses Steve’s pulse point, sucking a mark there, inspiring a guttural hiss from Steve.

Tony shimmies up, rubbing his hole over Steve’s cockhead until it catches. Steve gasps. He clutches the back of Tony’s knee, parting his legs further for better access, as he slams into that tight, warm heat, his pace rough and deep as he rolls his hips into the pliant body over and over again.

Tony’s breathing hitches as he murmurs, “Oh… Oh God, Steve. Steve. Oh– Hngh…” like a prayer spoken soft and reverent.

He angles up to mouth over Steve’s collarbone, his neck, anywhere he can reach, tasting the salt of Steve’s skin on his tongue. He arches his back, trying to press his erection between their stomachs to increase the friction as he grinds into him. His fingernails press half-moons in Steve’s back and pull across in angry red ribbons. From experience, Steve knows they will fade within minutes, his skin unmarked but leaving their stripes on his very soul.

God, he even smells the same as–

Tony comes quickly, a result of such a long absence, and though the orgasm proves dry, his body clenches tightly around Steve, pushing him over the precipice as well. Steve shutters and moans, spilling deep into the man under him.

The man who isn’t his husband.

_Oh God, what have I done?_

Steve gently extracts himself from Stark then sits up, fingers gripping his knees, his head drooped in shame, in guilt. Unaware of his inner turmoil, Stark rises as well, cradling Steve from behind, leaning into him.

“That was… I mean, I missed this, you know,” he murmurs against Steve’s cooling skin. “We haven’t done that in a long time.”

Steve shrugs him off coldly. “We’ve never done this before,” he barks out, angry and unnecessarily harsh; whether with Stark or himself, he is uncertain. His shoulders collapse further as he plants his elbows on his knees and drops his head in between, his clawed fingers running rough through his hair. “This– this was a mistake.”

He looks up at the screen still playing the video from their wedding reception. It’s his and Tony’s first dance, and Tony is letting Steve dip him, his expression open and laughing and so very happy. He can’t watch this, not right now. So, he stands and walks off in the direction of the master bedroom, picking his pants along with his pride off the floor.

“Steve!” Stark calls out. He nearly bowls over as he struggles to pull up his own pants. “Steve, please. It’s me.”

Steve turns around, finding himself unable to so much as glance at Tony’s face, the exact same one from the video but the expression now lost and pained.

Because of Steve.

“I can’t do this right now.”

The hurt quickly morphs to anger. “Goddamn it, Steve,” he curses. “Goddamn _you_. Sometimes I wish you could see what’s right in front of your face, but no! You must _like_ being miserable. So fuck you, you jackass! You– you absolute bastard! I– I thought… well, it doesn’t matter, because you, Steven Grant Rogers–” he points a shaking finger in Steve’s direction, “are a fucking asshole!”

He stomps past Steve, overtaking him and reaching the guest room first. He slams the door shut without so much as a final glance back.

Now alone, Steve considers the scotch left on the coffee table. He lifts it, watching the light from the screen play across its dark surface. Tony is whispering in his ear now, too low and too far away for the video to capture, but Steve remembers.

_I will love you, Steve, every single day for the rest of my life. That’s a promise._

He tips up the tumbler, silently toasting the happy couple before knocking the drink back in its entirety. Predictably, it has no effect on him.

Steve drops back onto the couch, covers his face with his hands, and weeps.


	4. The Nature of Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve reaches a new understanding regarding AI Tony.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nocireceptors are pain receptors.

Stark is gone the following morning. He had packed up and returned to the compound, according to a reproachful F.R.I.D.A.Y. Perhaps it is for the best. The lines between the two men are slowly blurring in Steve’s memory, and he clearly can’t be trusted to not hurt Stark with his confusion.

But when Steve arrives to train the Avengers, Stark doesn’t show, citing pressing research of utmost importance. He might not be exactly hiding, but perhaps he wants some distance after last night. It’s understandable; Steve should respect that.

“Stark, I–” Steve stops, staring into the empty robotics lab.

“If you’re looking for Mr. Stark,” Riri’s voice comes from behind him. He steps aside so she can get around him. “He’s holed up in Dr. Banner’s lab. Again.”

“Banner?” he’s already half a step out the door when Riri speaks again.

“Yeah, for personal non-Avengers business. He asked not to be disturbed,” she tells him pointedly with an unmistakable undertone of disapproval that stops Steve in his tracks.

He turns back. “Did he tell you?”

“Tell me what?” She crosses her arms. “All I know is that Mr. Stark, the perennial night owl, showed up at the crack of dawn asking if his old room is still available, and if not, whether he can just roll a cot into the lab to cycle and recharge here on a more-or-less permanent basis.”

“…Oh.” He is torn between barging into Banner’s labs right now and respecting Stark’s wishes.

Riri rolls her eyes. “You can’t keep doing this, Cap, inviting him back and then kicking him out on a whim. It isn’t fair to Mr. Stark.”

And Steve knows that. He _knows_. But–

“I didn’t kick him out.”

“Well, he didn’t leave on a lark.”

“Look. It’s– it’s complicated.” Steve internally cringes at the cliché, but it didn’t make it any less true. How else would he describe the situation in which he now finds himself?

Riri remains unsympathetic to his plight. “Well, you better sort it out quick, because whatever _is_ going on, it’s not healthy for either of you, and I’m tired of rolling in here and finding half the bots on fire extinguisher duty because Mr. Stark is inventing while depressed again. And the man pines, Cap. He pines real loud and persistently, to anyone in hearing distance; you know that? I’m sure poor Dr. Banner is taking a three-hour lunch to get away from him as we speak.”

That _did_ sound an awful lot like Tony.

“So fix it. _Please_.”

* * *

Surprisingly, Steve does find Tony in Dr. Banner’s lab. He is mixing a clear solution, pipetting different substances into his main flask while a magnetic stir bar spins at the bottom.

He must have been here a while because the lab smells like him, overpowering Steve’s delicate senses.

He knocks lightly on the open door, alerting the man to his presence.

Stark looks up, and his face falls. “If you’re looking for Dr. Banner, he stepped out for a bit. I think he’s getting tacos or something. He’s been gone an hour and a half already, so he’ll probably return soon if you wanted to come back later,” he states coolly, returning to the task at hand.

“I– um… I was actually looking for you.”

“Well, here I am. So, say whatever you came to say and get out.”

So Stark is still pissed.

“I just– I want to apologize for last night,” Steve begins.

“Hm… you seem to do that a lot around me, and yet nothing ever changes.” Stark replaces the test tube into its slot with enough force to cause the entire row to clink together.

Steve frowns. “I’m not going to pretend any of this is easy. You and I both know it’s not.”

Stark leans forward against the workstation, gripping the edge. “Progress isn’t a straight line, but I’m tired of being jerked around every time I think that maybe…” he pauses, his shoulders slumping. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. I’m busy. Come back later.”

Instead, Steve considers the flask. “What’s that you’re working on?”

“Body spray,” Stark replies with little preamble. “I left my bottle at your house, and I just thought I’d mix up another batch instead of asking for it back, considering how we left things.”

“It smells like–” and suddenly everything slots into place. “Tony.”

Stark is nonchalant. “Yeah, people get a little weirded out when you don’t smell human, even if they can’t quite place a finger on why you put them on edge. I just copied my skin’s pheromone profile and voila! I call it eau d’Stark. I mist myself every morning before my cologne,” he says, looking over at Steve from the corner of his eye. “You like?”

Steve wants to be angry, can feel the rage rise up, seep into his muscles, making them grow taut as his fist reflexively balls up. Scent memory can be powerful. No wonder Steve is so confused. Stark has been undermining the distinction between himself and Tony the entire time. How could he? How–

But then he stops.

Tony was brilliant; if he had a problem, he dealt with it himself, in the most efficient way he could come up with. And Stark is the very same. Can Steve really fault the man for wanting to be who he thinks he is? Who he remembers himself to be? Not everything is about Steve and his own grief. He loosens his fists, the fight draining out of him.

“It’s nice,” he says, defeated, as he turns to leave. “Now, if you’ll excuse me…”

“Steve, wait,” Stark calls out, his voice soft. “I– I meant what I said last night. I don’t know exactly what I am, what my existence means for the other Tony or if there can ever be… I just know that I love you. That knowledge is real enough for me, even if it’s not for you at this juncture. I know it’s not, at least not now, maybe not ever.”

Steve sighs. “Tony is… he _was_ one of a kind, and I don’t think anyone can ever replace him.” He waits a beat. “I’m sorry.”

And with that, Steve exits, pausing at the doorway only momentarily before heading out towards the Avengers’ training room.

* * *

There’s something soothing, almost therapeutic about destroying a series of purportedly-indestructible punching bags, systematically and without so much as a break.

_Left-left-right-left-left-right-right-left-right_

He hears the other man approach even before he speaks. Bucky is better than that, so it must be on purpose.

“What’d those sandbags ever do to you?” Steve looks over his shoulder to see Bucky staring at the veritable graveyard of split, busted bags, the filling spilling out across the floor.

“I’ll clean up after I’m done,” Steve says in lieu of a response.

“Hm… right,” Bucky waits a bit, but Steve is not forthcoming.

_Left-right-right-_

“It’s just… yesterday was your anniversary, and Stark moved back in this morning.”

_PLOW!_

The bag rips off the hook and sails across the room, bursting open across the opposite wall, sand immediately dusting everything in a three-foot radius.

It’s going to be hell to clean up.

Steve doesn’t care. He slumps over, breathing heavily, from physical or emotional exertion, he’s not sure.

“It’s not… it’s nothing. Nothing happened,” he pants out, but one look at Bucky and he sighs. He’s never been much of a liar, especially not to his best friend. “Okay, so, I might have forgotten myself. I– I made a mistake, alright? And now Stark is rightfully upset with me. But it’s not going to happen again, so… you can stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?” Bucky states, his tone unreadable, almost curious.

“You told me it was a bad idea, and you were right. But now he’s staying here at the compound, and– and it’s not going to happen again,” he reiterates.

Bucky regards his friend, a pensive look upon his face. “You know, Stevie. I get why you were angry with him. Hell, I was pissed off myself at first.”

“You don’t say? And you’ve been hiding it so well.”

“Hey, I refrained from asking Strange if he could contact Tony from beyond the grave so I could tell him off myself,” Bucky protests. “That has to count for something.”

“A model of restraint.”

He ignores Steve’s sarcasm. “So yeah, I wasn’t happy with him. But then I began to think… if I had a chance to talk to Nat one more time, to see her knowing smile and hold her again… I’m not going to lie, Stevie.” He clasps his shoulder. “I’d take it in a heartbeat. Even if it’s just a copy, I’d give anything and everything just to see her again. And, well… you have that chance. No one would fault you if you just took it.”

But Steve _can’t_. “I– I miss him, Buck.”

“I know, Stevie. I know,” he commiserates. “What do you say we get this place cleaned up and maybe go to the commissary to get some beers and take them up to the roof? For old time’s sake. What do you say?”

“I can’t get drunk.”

“And neither can I, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get out of here and have a drink together.”

* * *

Steve had tried not to, but he notices now. For however many differences between the two that Steve had nitpicked in the prior months, Stark is remarkably similar to Tony in nearly all respects. He has Tony’s smile, his laugh, his same mannerisms and way of speaking. It shouldn’t surprise him as much as it does. Tony was a genius, and he crafted a near-perfect copy, programmed enough of himself into his creation so as to fool most everyone, even his own spouse at times.

“Dammit Cap. Am I going to have to super-glue this to your arm?” Stark says, fiddling with the shield that had to be recovered after their most recent mission. “You lose this again or damage it in any way, and I’m going to rescind your friends-and-family discount on my services. You can afford full price.” Steve had inherited all of Tony’s money and assets, after all.

But in Steve’s defense… “It got lodged under a building. The electromagnetic retrieval device didn’t work. It only made it ricochet around like a pinball.”

Stark sighs and hands him back his shield with the scratches buffed out, shiny and new. Steve tests the hold and heft of his signature weapon as well as its balance, finding it acceptable, good as new really.

Despite his words, the left corner of Stark’s mouth tugs up as he suppresses a grin. It makes Steve’s heart ache.

Stark is _a copy_ , Steve reminds himself. He might have Tony’s memories, an entire library of interactions and conversations that he can recall, repeat, and remix as needed, but at the end of the day, he’s not Tony.

“That’s my man,” Stark says, giving him a pat on the upper arm.

_He’s not Tony._

* * *

“Can you believe _Days of our Lives_?” Stark asks him another time, when he enters the break room only to find Steve. “I mean… I can’t believe that whole season-long subplot where Joe Everyman turned out to be Anastasia’s identical twin cousin _and_ her husband’s killer was all a dream… the family cat’s dream.”

Peter looks perplexed while Steve just looks annoyed.

“Dammit, Stark. I had that pre-recorded, and I didn’t get a chance to watch it yet!”

_He’s not Tony._

* * *

“Okay, who is this Nicole person again?” Peter asks later after he somehow gets roped into watching _Days of Our Lives_ on the break room television.

“Clone,” Steve and Stark both reply, engrossed in their favorite trashy mid-day indulgence.

_He’s not Tony._

* * *

“Hey, Cap, care to give me a hand with this?”

Steve had stopped by the robotics lab once again to check in on the most-recent version of Iron Man, only to find Stark had scrapped the entire thing and is rebuilding it from scratch.

“Just hold that steady here,” Stark instructs him. Once Steve grabs hold of the unwieldy piece, he runs around the table, activating the gurney to stabilize the part for him to weld it in place.

“My hero.” He pulls down his safety goggles.

“Remodel?” Steve inquires.

Stark isn’t quite looking at him, concentrating on getting a seamless fit. “Yep. Everyone loves a cupholder,” he says absently.

“…Really?”

“Tech has changed. Ironheart is a full four percent faster than Iron Man. Now, I know, I know; it has to do with body size and a generally more svelte shape, but I can’t be shown up by another Iron Man… Iron Person? Iron Individual? That’s the gender-neutral term these days, right? Encompassing more than just humans?” he lifts up his safety goggles. “Hell, the armor isn’t even really made of iron anyway, so what am I even tripping for?”

The look he gives Steve, just teetering on the border between intense and irreverent, makes Steve’s stomach flip.

Stark turns his attention back towards Iron Man, dipping into the bowels of the suit. “You’re going to have to get used to it, you know, having a new suit in town.”

Steve’s heart stutters.

_Have you gotten used to the new suit in town?_

“I’ve got to go.” Steve abruptly turns heel and stalks out of the labs, leaving behind a confused AI.

 _He’s NOT Tony,_ he has to remind himself yet again.

* * *

In the months since the attack on New York Harbor where Stark had borrowed Ironheart’s backup armor and made his debut, the Avengers had been keeping eye on the bay, searching for any signs of the giant octopus that had ravaged the port. It had been quiet – almost too quiet.

It wasn’t destined to last.

“Activity on the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. announces, alerting everyone in the compound, “Three colossal cephalopods attempting to crush and disable supporting structures.”

“Avengers,” Steve calls out into his comm as he straps on his Captain America uniform and shield, “Assemble.”

They fly out to the scene, dropping out of the Quinjet and forming three groups to deal with the creatures. Bucky and Steve’s groups are deployed to the Brooklyn Bridge, while Thor’s group splits off to defend the more-interior Manhattan Bridge.

Splitting up their fliers left Bucky with Ironheart and Steve with a black-armored Iron Man. It had been ages since Captain America fought alongside Iron Man, but they had always worked together seamlessly in the field. It is no different today.

“Stark, duck!” Steve shouts, throwing his shield to lodge the octopus’s beak before it can take a piece out of Iron Man.

Stark circles back, lifting him up by the pits to avoid a swipe of a powerful tentacle. Steve recalls the shield, noting the slight off-circle warping of its perfect disk shape. “Stay away from the beak!” he warns the others before telling Stark that the “Skin is too thick. Drop me near the eye. I can still drive my shield into its brain.”

“You got it, Cap,” he replies, dipping in low. “Straight through the eye is the central brain.”

Stark drops Steve, and jets upward and away to provide a distraction for the undulating tentacles.

Behind the faceplate, it is even harder to differentiate Stark from Tony, despite the change in color scheme. The way Iron Man lifts off and lands, leading with his right, his movements in the field, not to mention his banter over the comms are all signature Tony Stark. It’s so very close, an almost-perfect facsimile. Almost. If Steve weren’t so busy, it would make his heart ache.

Steve slides down the head of the octopus, catching onto the eye ridge. He lifts his shield up high and brings it down, burying the edge into the pupil in a spray of bluish-green blood, driving it deep straight towards the optic lobe of the creature’s brain.

The octopus doesn’t scream so much as shutter and writhe, its tentacles flexing inward to sweep Steve off his feet, blindly reaching and coiling around his prone form. Steve’s arms are pinned to his side, and he can’t reach his wrist to recall his shield. But the tentacle around him goes taut from an electric shock applied courtesy of Iron Man then abruptly lets him go.

“…Stark?” Steve breathes out.

“Hey Cap.” Stark tries to scoop him up, but the creature must find its bearings because in the next moment, it has wrapped its injured tentacle around Stark’s ankle, curling up to encase him around his waist and upwards still. Stark grunts as he tries to angle his wrists to laser then electrocute the tightening flesh, but it’s no use. Without the element of surprise, the octopus seems to anticipate the pain, choosing to slowly constrict the source of it instead.

Steve recalls his shield and tries to free Iron Man, unsuccessfully hacking away at the tentacle enveloping him.

“Nocireceptors off,” he hears Stark say under his breath. “Steve, get out of here. Find another angle.”

“No man left behind!” Steve argues, stubbornly trying to lodge his shield in between metal and flesh to wedge them apart. To his horror, he hears the armor start to complain as it begins to crush. “I’m getting you out!”

_No backups. If something happens to my core–_

Stark opens his faceplate to reveal red mechanical lubricate – reminiscent of blood – running down his face in rivulets, though he seems barely cognizant of it, his face oddly serene. “I love you, Steve. I’ve always loved you.”

Steve cannot accept this. “No! Dammit Stark, you are _not_ dying on me!” He drops the shield, trying to lodge his fingers in the diminishing space between, to manually separate them.

“Take care of the others. They’re our legacy. Yours and mine.”

Steve stops. “Our baby,” he whispers, barely daring to believe it.

Stark half-smiles, his eyes suspiciously wet. “And our baby is thriving,” he agrees, an echo from long ago. “Goodbye, Steve.”

Stark couldn’t have possibly known what Tony said to him that very last night, nor could he have been programmed to repeat that sentiment, his last download having occurred in advance of that fateful conversation.

And that meant…

A million different instances, similarities, and coincidences rush back to him. Stark’s demeanor, his gentle handling of Steve’s disbelief, his eventual impatience and fury, his mannerisms and everything about him, and now this: his propensity for self-sacrifice, his feelings regarding the Avengers and the depth of his trust in Steve to carry on.

There’s only one conclusion.

Tony had done it after all; he had come back for him.

And now, it’s too late.

“Tony… Tony, please,” Steve begs, placing a hand on either side of his face. “Stay with me. Please don’t leave. Not again.”

There is a yawning sound of metal bending as his armor is warped and twisted, cutting into his synthetic flesh to bleed red fluid, followed by a loud snap as the torsion severs his Vibranium skeleton, breaking Tony’s body into pieces. His eyes drift shut, and Steve hears a distant howling as his mind fades to black.

* * *

Steve doesn’t remember much of the time between when Tony had been pulverized and when Steve had come to screaming and covered in bluish-green blood on a heap of gelatinous sludge with Bucky trying to hold him down, while Ironheart disabled the device to recall his shield and Mjolnir pinned the struggling weapon in place. Steve’s entire body aches, and he tastes iron in his mouth, but that didn’t stop him from registering Tony’s prognosis.

Tony’s body is ruined, but his skull survived, encasing the pearl containing his source code, protecting it, even as the system to access it has shut down, making him appear dead though his consciousness is miraculously uninjured.

It takes Dr. Cho a while to source the materials needed for his new body. Steve spares no expense for the endeavor, authorizing the acquisition of whatever is needed to make Tony whole again as fast as possible.

He waits by the Cradle as it synthesizes the skeleton and layer upon layer of tissue, practicing the apology in his head. _I’m sorry I didn’t believe you for so long. You were so patient with me, and I didn’t recognize you,_ he thinks. _I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry it took you dying – again – for me to see it._

“He’s ready, Captain Rogers,” Dr. Cho tells him gently.

“No permanent damage?” Steve asks again, just to check.

She is diplomatic in her response. “His pain sensors were off, but he might have residual psychological effects from… being dismantled. It’s not something the human mind gets over easily, even though he technically survived the experience.”

“We can find him a therapist,” Steve says, reaching out to hold Tony’s limp hand. “It wouldn’t be the first time.” It had taken years for the nightmares to abate after the Chitauri invasion, and even still, Tony would wake up in a cold sweat decades later, as if he never really left the fight, but Steve can help him through it – they’ll help each other – if Tony will still have him.

“We are bringing him back online,” Dr. Cho says just as Tony’s eyes flutter open.

“Steve?” he mumbles, as he looks down at his body, undamaged and new. “Did anyone get the license plate number of the truck that hit me?” he tries to sit up, stretching out the new muscles and ligaments for the very first time, finding them tight and aching. He could turn off his nocireceptors again for the time being, but he declines, choosing to feel his body awaken to novel sensations in a flare of pins and needles. He cracks his back, wiggles his toes.

“Seriously, I think I have a case for reckless endangerment,” he chuckles lightly, stopping on a wheeze when his ribs ache with the unfamiliar expansion. He looks down to where his hand is interlocked with Steve’s, his gaze traveling up the other man’s arm to rest on Steve’s face, wide and hopeful, tears prickling his eyes, overwhelmed with relief.

Steve bends over to kiss him on the cheek.

“Welcome back, sweetheart.”

* * *

**Several Months Later**

Tony had been right about the view all those years ago. In mid-autumn, the leaves in the grove below turn brilliant reds and yellows – the colors of sunset – before they brown, wither and fall by the early days of winter.

But in the first blush of spring–

“There’s somebody walking over my grave,” Tony jokes, a touch awkwardly, as Steve tends to his headstone, clearing out the drooping bouquet from the week before. Tony stands at the bottom corner of the site, holding an armful of fresh flowers, uncertain about how to proceed. What is the correct etiquette for visiting the final resting place of your husband(?)’s dead spouse who also happens to be you? It’s quite the conundrum that was never covered in his boarding school’s cotillion program.

Steve sighs. “Tony… you didn’t have to come if it would make you uncomfortable,” he says, his voice even. “If you want to wait in the car, I’d understand.”

“No, no; I’m fine,” Tony replies, rolling heel-toe in place, but coming no closer. “The question is how are you holding up? Are you really okay with me being here?” He’s feigning nonchalance, but Steve knows better. The question itself smacks of insecurity about his place in the universe and in Steve’s affections, but his suspicions are further cemented when Tony speaks yet again. “I know it’s going to be hard to measure up to him.”

Steve lifts a brow. “To yourself?”

“You know what I mean. I– I’m different now, you know. What if I don’t meet expectations? I’ve got a long stretch ahead of me; I will probably disappoint you, eventually. It’s inevitable really,” he replies, waving off Steve’s protestations. “No, I’m serious. I’m not a human man with limited mortality, who knows his days are numbered and acts accordingly. What if I’m just not the same anymore?”

“Care to hand me those?” Steve says, reaching out for the flowers. Tony walks along the outskirts of the grave, coming up beside Steve to pass him the fresh bouquet.

“You like them?” Steve asks, absently, as he rearranges the blooms with care.

“Yes.”

“I’m glad.” He is quiet for a beat, pensive as he thinks about how to phrase what he has been thinking about for months.

“That’s the thing about people, you know,” Steve begins, standing to look at the arrangement. His fingers gently interlace with Tony’s beside him. “We’re always changing, growing and evolving. Never static, not really. You aren’t the same as before, but neither am I,” – another pause – “And neither was he. Tony wasn’t the same man at forty that he was at sixty, and he was completely different still at eighty. And maybe… Well, I’ve fallen in love with you so many times, over and over, through so many different iterations… I don’t know what that all means, or if it really matters in the end,” Steve looks over at Tony, addressing him directly. “I just know that I love you, Tony. I loved you then, and I love you now, forever and always.”

Tony looks away to rub his eyes. “I love you, too, Steve. That’ll never change.” And it hadn’t. His love for Steve had survived decades together, had even outlived Tony’s very own death.

Steve dips in close, his lips ghosting a warm breath over Tony’s ear.

“Promise?”

“I do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, if you enjoyed this, please consider leaving a comment below.


End file.
